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<h2 class="PageTitle">About Nagios&reg;</h2>
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<a name="whatis"></a>
<strong><u>What Is This?</u></strong>
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<p>
Nagios&reg; is a system and network monitoring application.  It watches hosts and services that you specify, alerting you when things go bad and when they get better.
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Nagios was originally designed to run under <a href="http://www.linux.com">Linux</a>, although it should work under most other unices as well.
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Some of the many features of Nagios&reg; include:
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<ul>
<li>Monitoring of network services (SMTP, POP3, HTTP, NNTP, PING, etc.)
<li>Monitoring of host resources (processor load, disk usage, etc.)
<li>Simple plugin design that allows users to easily develop their own service checks
<li>Parallelized service checks
<li>Ability to define network host hierarchy using "parent" hosts, allowing detection of and distinction between hosts that are down and those that are unreachable
<li>Contact notifications when service or host problems occur and get resolved (via email, pager, or user-defined method) 
<li>Ability to define event handlers to be run during service or host events for proactive problem resolution
<li>Automatic log file rotation
<li>Support for implementing redundant monitoring hosts
<li>Optional web interface for viewing current network status, notification and problem history, log file, etc.
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<a name="requirements"></a>
<strong><u>System Requirements</u></strong>
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<i>The only requirement of running Nagios is a machine running Linux (or UNIX variant) and a C compiler.</i>  You will probably also want to have TCP/IP configured, as most service checks will be performed over the network.
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You are <i>not required</i> to use the CGIs included with Nagios.  However, if you do decide to use them, you will need to have the following software installed...
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<li>A web server (preferrably <a href="http://www.apache.org" target="_top">Apache</a>)
<li>Thomas Boutell's <a href="http://www.boutell.com/gd">gd library</a> version 1.6.3 or higher (required by the <a href="cgis.html#statusmap">statusmap</a> and <a href="cgis.html#trends_cgi">trends</a> CGIs)
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<a name="licensing"></a>
<strong><u>Licensing</u></strong>
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Nagios&reg; is licensed under the terms of the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU General Public License</a> Version 2 as published by the <a href="http://www.fsf.org">Free Software Foundation</a>.  This gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify Nagios under certain conditions.  Read the 'LICENSE' file in the Nagios distribution or read the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">online version of the license</a> for more details.
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Nagios&reg; is provided AS IS with NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING THE WARRANTY OF DESIGN, MERCHANTABILITY, AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
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<a name="acknowledgements"></a>
<strong><u>Acknowledgements</u></strong>
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<p>
Several people have contributed to Nagios by either reporting bugs, suggesting improvements, writing plugins, etc.  A list of some of the many contributors to the development of Nagios can be found at <a href="http://www.nagios.org/">http://www.nagios.org</a>.
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<a name="downloading"></a>
<strong><u>Downloading The Latest Version</u></strong>
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You can check for new versions of Nagios at <a href="http://www.nagios.org" target="_top">http://www.nagios.org</a>.
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Nagios and the Nagios logo are trademarks of Ethan Galstad.  All other trademarks, servicemarks, registered trademarks, and registered servicemarks may be the property of their respective owner(s).
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